In a variety of contexts, it is desirable to sanitize transmitted electronic messages. Such sanitization involves selectively removing or otherwise blocking or rendering unintelligible sensitive subject-matter of the messages. This is generally implemented based on sanitation rules that identify the sensitive subject matter and establish access/distribution rules based on, for example, the identity of the potential recipients, the classification affiliation or other status of potential recipients, the locations or nationalities of potential end users, or other criteria.
The case of distributing information in an MLS system is illustrative. Generally, an MLS system defines multiple levels of clearance. Each level is associated with its own rules regarding subject matter to which access may be provided. For example, in the context of selectively distributing protected images and military asset information, particular subject matter may be designated as “secret”, “top secret”, “no foreign nationals”, etc.
Conventionally, the associated rules are executed manually. However, such manual execution has limitations related to timeliness and consistency. With regard to timeliness, it is often desired to selectively share information in contexts where timeliness of dissemination is critical. For example, the positions of friendly and potentially hostile military assets may need to be quickly distributed to decision-makers in the field. However, such decision-makers may have various clearances related to their service association, alliance affiliation or nationality and the like. In an era of active international police efforts, the need to simultaneously share information and protect national security interests is particularly challenging and important. Manually reviewing volumes of messages against a complicated array of sanitization rules is time consuming and impractical for certain applications. Moreover, manual administration of rules introduces an undesirable element of human subjectivity and inconsistency into an area where uniformity is of paramount importance.
Attempts have been made to address some of these issues by automation, but such attempts have had limited success. Generally, proposed automated systems have attempted to discern the subject matter of a communication, determine the clearance or authorization of an intended recipient and make a decision as to distribution. Such systems have the potential to accelerate certain decisions, but generally lack the human capacity to redact or sanitize only sensitive subject matter while transmitting as much as possible of the remaining “clean” material. Thus, messages including a large amount of useful and important clean material and a single dirty word, such as a protected code name, may be at least temporarily lost to recipients where the national interest would have dictated a need for immediate distribution.
Automated systems may also be limited due to messaging format considerations. In addition to reviewing messages relative to a variety of sanitation rules, analysis and distribution of messages may require the ability to manage many different messaging formats. In the military context, there are often many sources of information that provide messages in a variety of formats. These different formats may relate to the nature of the messages (e.g., images, text, data and combinations thereof) as well as the nature of the sources (e.g., the service affiliation, nationality, or specific hardware and software environment of the source). There may also be many potential recipients with associated format requirements relating to some of the same issues. This proliferation of formats complicates the goal of automation. That is, if these formats can be handled at all, it may only be at the expense of timeliness due to the need for reconfiguration and, perhaps, re-certification. As a result, neither manual nor proposed automated systems provide optimal performance in relation to security screening.